Progress is Progress....

Lately we have been seeing a LOT of changes in Faith, developmentally. Really for the past 7 months or so. I have no real explanation for it, except GOD working, which is enough for me! She has really been testing me and my commitment to how I will begin homeschooling her, this fall. Let me back up a little and say that I used to obsess over stupid things that I thought she would NEVER do......like.....learn colors or numbers or be able to identify weather. In the last six weeks she has begun to do ALL of these things!
One of her goals in speech is to be able to identify 4 or 5 colors, I believe. After a month of......RED and YELLOW, she can now reliably discern the difference about 80% of the time. Seriously, all we did was RED and YELLOW, every week! But it must be working, right! Also, I have had this video of her, I have been trying to post for two weeks now, with no success, that shows her saying "THREEEEEE". Of course, it ALL goes back to HORSES. We were on one of her favorite reads.....the 2009 Illustrated Horse calender (insert snicker here!) and on every page we would put her hand on each horse and count....one...two....three. All of a sudden she GOT it and started saying THREEEEEE. She, by no means, is doing this in any kind of order, no one's or two's but I'm not complaining! So, now she can put her OWN hand on each horse, one at a time and (if there ARE three horses) she often will say three! Amazing?
Next, I found these weather static cling stickers at the local Dollar Tree. They have clouds, sun, rain, rainbows etc. We hung them up on the back door and every day, we go check to see what it's doing outside. Tough things like rainbows and snow, she can't discern but she knows SUNNY and RAINY, now! If you hold up the two stickers and ask her "Is it sunny or rainy outside, Faith" she is pretty, darn good at picking the right one. She will even add her own version of the correct word as she points out the window! The other day, as we were leaving therapy she pointed up and said "nun-eeeee" (her word for sunny) SO FLIPPIN' CUTE.
So now I am really having to start pushing myself to push her a little more than I thought she was ready for. I have spent hours on the computer, at night, scouring the web for crafts, projects and ideas to re enforce these ideas that she is picking up. I NEVER thought we would be ready to do these things, this year (maybe not any year). It made me think, last night, about the girl who did Faith's evaluations, last fall. She told us that the biggest thing we had to fear, with Faith, was UNDERestimating her. AND SHE IS RIGHT....